Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith." To live, grow, and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be "working through charity," abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church. This quote from the Catechism provides an important lesson for today's Catholics. In the U.S., there are clearly dark forces working to harm the Church. We as Catholics must learn about our faith so that we can combat heresy, inaccuracies, and propaganda. I find it amusing that the anti-Catholic special interest groups are using the argument that since most Catholics don't adhere to the our Church's teaching on birth control, we should not be upset that Obamacare will force Catholic organizations to include this option in the Government-required plan. My first reaction was who are these Catholics that you are polling? The issue of birth control has probably taken a back seat to other issues when we look at what topics our priests are preaching about from the pulpit. But that does not mean that we are to turn away from God's teaching. Picking the rules you want to adhere to is not what a true relationship with God is about. Think about Adam and Eve and their fateful decision to disobey God and eat from the tree of knowledge. It was this craving to become God that drove our first ancestors to choose to follow their ego rather than their conscience. But back to the argument presented earlier in this post. The bigger problem may be that we as Catholics have lost our way. We have become lax when it comes to knowing all that we can about our religion. Our faith needs to be nurtured and we do that by taking care of our relationship with God. One of the best ways to do that is by knowing all that we can about God's Church. Our faith development is a never ending process. Perhaps we are being led astray by the slick marketing about birth control. Perhaps we are lured by the idea that preventing pregnancy will make us happy. We will have more time to spend on things we enjoy. We can spend our money on things we covet. We can do whatever we want whenever we want. Looking back on those preceding statements, it is easy to see how that this will lead to a very selfish lifestyle. Maybe because so many of us have chosen to live in and of the world, we have lost the right to call ourselves Catholic. Can we really defend something that we know so little about? Maybe, as St. Paul says, we are losing this priceless gift of faith because we continue to make decisions that are counter to what our conscience tells us. So it follows that we should not be offended or surprised when others attempt to define who we are as a people and what our faith is really about. I reject that notion and I urge you to do the same. Arm yourself with the knowledge that will prepare you to protect your Church. Make no mistake that the attempt to endow our Church with worldly doxology is a definite strategy. Each small step leads us further down the proverbial slippery slope. Now is the time to make a stand. Being a Catholic in the true sense is hard but the end result is so wonderful. Is everlasting life with your Father in heaven not worth a little of your time and effort? Stand up and be counted and let the world know that the Catholics will not be marginalized nor will our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His meekness was reserved for times when people needed compassion and empathy. But when the money changers dared to use his Father's house for inappropriate business, Jesus stood in the the gap and said no. Will you do the same for Him now?